The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing articles, e.g. for cooling or freezing such articles or goods, the apparatus being of the kind comprising elevator means for conveying carpetformed, in the longitudinal direction flexible carriers in the vertical direction with a predetermined mutual distance above each other, wherein the elevator means are provided with an infeed station for inserting the carriers into the elevator means and an outlet station for removing the carriers from the elevator means, an wherein the apparatus moreover comprises means for conveying the carriers from the outlet station and to the infeed station.
An apparatus of the kind referred to above is known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,993,189. In order to feed the carriers into the elevator means the apparatus known from said U.S. specification comprises a pivotally supported ramp. When a carrier arrives at the infeed station, the front end of the carrier is moved onto the ramp and moved along the ramp onto a pair of supports of the elevator means which are moved in the vertical direction continuously. During this infeed movement the ramp pivots in such a way that one end of the ramp follows the pair of supports being loaded and, accordingly, the carrier to be fed into the elevator means will be supported by the ramp during the movement of infeed and, accordingly, the trailing end of the carrier will be fully supported. When the trailing end of a carrier has been inserted onto a pair of supports of the elevator means, the ramp is pivoted in the opposite direction corresponding to the mutual distance of two adjacent pairs of supports of the elevator means and now the front end of the following carrier can be inserted into the next pair of supports. Such ramp necessitates the use of means for pivoting the ramp up and down with two different velocities which complicates the apparatus.